Heather Webber - Digging Up Trouble

A second later her annoying voice came through the speaker on my desk. “Detective Quinn, line one.”

“Thanks. I’ll take it. Hey,” I said, picking up the phone.

“Hey you. How you holding up?”

“Fine.” Why was Kevin calling? Had he heard something?

“Any word on the murder charges?”

I heard a gasp and yelled, “Hang up, Mrs. Krauss!”

One loud cluck and phone click later, I picked up the conversation.

“Brickhouse is working for you?” Kevin asked.

“Are you laughing? Because it’s not funny.”

“Is so.”

“Tam hired her.”

“Then she’s staying.”

“Pretty much.”

“Good thing Tam’s safe in the hospital.”

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“Pretty much.”

Because I had to make a decision about Bobby, I asked,

“How’s Parsley?”

I’d caught him off guard. The silence on his end of the line was telling. “Fine.”

It was also telling that he didn’t correct Ginger’s name, his usual habit. “You two still getting along?”

“You know how I feel about you, Nina. I made that clear already.”

A while back he’d asked me, hypothetically, what would happen between us if he realized he’d made a big mistake in leaving.

Even though I still loved him, I hadn’t been able to forgive him.

“And it didn’t change things,” he said, “so what’s changed?”

I needed to decide about Bobby, that’s what. Which meant that I needed to decide, once and for all, about Kevin.

Were we done? For good? Was I just hanging on to broken hopes and crushed dreams?

I wasn’t sure. And I wasn’t sure how to be sure.

Lord, I was beginning to suspect I needed motherly advice.

My confusion was that bad.

“Nina?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Sounds like something to me.”

“Too much time at the range. Your hearing’s going.”

He grunted. “Stubborn.”

“Why’d you call?”

“Russ Grabinsky.”

“You have heard something, then.”

“I haven’t heard about the charges, but the M.E. just faxed over the postmortem results.”

“And?”

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“And they’re still waiting for the tox screens to come back, so it’s not a final report.”

“But?”

He didn’t lower his voice, so I assumed he was on his cell somewhere, safe from prying ears. “Heart attack. Ninety-five percent artery blockage. He was a walking time bomb.”

“A time bomb. One that could be set off by a surprise makeover?”

“I’m sorry.”

“So the prosecutor will probably file charges against me.”

“I don’t know. Nothing will happen until the toxicology reports come in. There could be something in there.”

Could be. But probably not.

I sighed. “Thanks for letting me know. I know you’re not supposed to be talking to me.”

“I’ll always do my best to protect you, Nina. You’ve got to know that.”

Funny thing was I did.

After dropping Riley off at Growl, I drove over to the Fallow Falls neighborhood.

I pulled right into Greta’s driveway, marched up the front steps, and rang the bell.

Coming here served two purposes. One was to avoid contact with Brickhouse Krauss at all costs. The other was to talk with Greta Grabinsky.

I wasn’t leaving until I saw her. That was that. I had too much to lose if I didn’t. She could sue the pants off me if she wanted, but I was not going to jail for something that wasn’t my fault.

I rang the bell again.

Greta held a lot of the answers I wanted. About Bill and Russ, those accounting books, the HOA lawsuit, the person threatening her, about finishing the backyard.

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Buzzing again, I tapped my foot. The pot of pansies on the front step looked pitiful, wilting in the sunshine.

Giving up on the buzzer, I rapped on the door. It opened on its own.

Immediately my defenses went up.

“Hello?” I called, pushing the door farther open with my elbow. “Mrs. Grabinsky? Greta?”

Don’t go in, my inner voice whispered.

The adrenaline drowned it out.

I stepped into a small hallway. The lime green linoleum was worn and cracked but looked freshly cleaned. I came to two doorways, one on each side of me. I went left. The living room.

I gasped. Where the room had been immaculate the other day, it was now as though a twister had swept through, up-ending and damaging everything in its path.

My gaze immediately shot to the small end table where just two days ago the accounting books had sat. The over-turned table lay on its side.

I poked around as best I could without touching anything, but as far as I could tell, the accounting books were gone.

The sofa’s cushions had been slashed open, stuffing spilling out of the wounds. The couch itself had been tipped, its underside ripped open.

Someone had been looking for something.

The voice from the other day, the one coming from Greta’s kitchen, haunted me.

If he had them, you had them. And I want them back. Now.

Russ had no right to them and neither do you.

Had he finally given up on Greta giving the item back and resorted to taking it back? By force?

“Greta?” I called out.

I took another minute to look around the living room, at the broken face of the old grandfather clock, the old typewriter 156

Heather Webber

upside down on the floor, the old buffet cabinet turned on its side, its doors open wide.

The dining room hadn’t fared much better. Whoever had been searching was careful not to break any of the good china.

How courteous.

A set of silver littered the floor. Nothing looked missing, though I supposed Greta would have to be the one to go through things piece by piece.

I felt myself getting angry for her. This kind of intrusion was such a violation of privacy and security.

“Greta?” I yelled.

Get out, my inner voice yelled.

I listened, but only for a second. I couldn’t leave until I knew if Greta was okay.

In the kitchen, the cabinets and pantry had been emptied onto the floor. The searcher was thorough. Even the flour and sugar canisters were dumped out—into the sink.

Trash spilled out of a plastic white can onto the linoleum.

A brown banana peel, old newspaper, a take-out soup cup from Growl that still had mushrooms clinging to its insulated sides. Forest Mushroom? Mushroom Barley? There was also a Growl take-out bag, coffee grounds, and some wadded paper towels.

I quickly checked the back hall. More of the same de-struction. But no Greta.

A brown rotary phone hung on the kitchen wall, and I told myself to call the police.

I headed for the stairs instead.

On the second floor the bathroom was a mess, drawers opened. I tried not to notice the everyday items of Russ and Greta’s life. The toothpaste, the deodorant, razors, shaving cream, but couldn’t. It smelled horrid in there even though Digging Up Trouble

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the window was open. The scent of someone who’d been horribly ill. Lingering from Russ’s bout with the flu?

The window looked out into the backyard, and from up there was a bird’s-eye view of both the Lockharts’ and the Hathaways’ yards. I took a deep breath of clean air and hurried into the hall.

There were only two bedrooms. I went for the closest and pushed open the door. “Greta? Are you here?”

The first thing I noticed was that this room hadn’t been searched.

The second was that Greta lay diagonally across the bed on her back, wearing the same frumpy housecoat she’d worn the last two times I’d seen her.

Only this time she was very clearly dead.